163 
Ordinary Meeting, March 6th, 1877. 
E. W. Binney, F.R.S., F.G.S., President, in the Chair. 
Mr. Thomas Mackereth and Mr. Alfred Brothers were 
appointed Auditors of the Treasurer’s Accounts. 
The Peesident said that since his Notice of Some Organic 
Remains from the Schists of the Isle of Man, read before 
the Society on the 26th day of December last, he had again 
examined the slates at Derby Castle, on the north side of 
Douglas Bay. These beds of hard slates are perforated 
with holes, generally of an oval form, about a foot above 
high-water mark and the same distance below. In them 
he found live specimens of the Littorina littorea, and from 
the general resemblance of the shape of the holes to the 
mouth of that shell it appeared to him that it was probable 
they might be made by that animal. He certainly had 
never heard of its boring or excavating powers; but he 
brought it before the Society for the purpose of obtaining 
information on the subject. It was well known that the 
teeth of the whelk had great cutting powers, but he had 
not seen it noticed that the Littorina had. 
Professor Balfouk Stewaet, LL.D., F.R.S., gave an 
account of the Sun Spot and Magnetical Observations 
which have been made at the Kew Observatory, and exhi- 
bited diagrams showing that the maximum and minimum 
ranges of variation of magnetic declination generally lagged 
behind those of solar spot frequency by a period of about 
six months. 
Proceedings — Lit. & Phil. Soc. — Vol. XYI. — No. 10. — Session 1876-7. 
